There you have it – your own life exposed to the whole world on the internet. Your pictures, your personal info., your hobbies, your likes, your dislikes and then some….everything is out in the open and by your own choice. That is the power of your Facebook profile. Positive or negative – the impact of this powerful social tool is beyond you and your ‘friends’.In a very short period, Facebook has become THE social networking site. On a good day, Facebook can get more hits than Google – the godfather of all websites. Facebook is a force to reckon with. If you are not familiar with Facebook, you are either very outdated or live in dark basement with no connection to the outside world, and no access to the internet.
Now that we have established that you are in fact connected to the internet, you are most likely a part of this Facebook phenomenon or fad – whatever you want to call it.This should come as a no surprise to anyone, Facebook comes with its own side-effects, many of them not so social. Here are ten of the ugly aspects of FB usage, the antisocial effects of this social network:
1. Addictive: If you use Facebook regularly, you know exactly how this site can be addictive. Always updating your status, checking on others, bragging about yourself, or just mingling with strangers…. The Facebook puts a variety of powerful options on your fingertips and you are hooked – for hours and hours every day.
2. Intrusive on personal privacy: Many of us pay very little attention to all the information we put online, some of it quite personal. Where you live, your contact information, what you do, where you go…. You may be opening the doors for others to intrude on your life. Even with all the privacy settings, lots of so called ‘friends’ have access to your personal information, a lot more than you may want to.
3. ‘Friends’ may not be friends: It is very common for everybody to have 100s of FB friends now-a-days; it is a popularity statement after-all. Are the Facebook friends really your friends? If you are adding everyone you meet in your school or workplace or online, chances are that you have many strangers in your friends’ list. Some of them may be there just to watch you. In real life, that would be considered creepy!
4. A society of loners: FB has become a place to pass time if you have nothing better to do. Many FB users hide in their rooms and log onto FB, rather than socializing with actual friends and family. Those who don’t socialize in real life may prefer to add excessive friends on FB and feel ‘social’ online. In some cases, the online social networking tool could actually encourage you to be anti-social and loner in your real life.
5. A cheating tool: How you use internet and Facebook is up to you. The FB lets you connect with old friends, ex-bf/ex-gf or anyone else you may have had crush on in the past. One recent report has blamed FB for one in every five divorces, and nobody seems to be surprised.
6. Frequent and annoying status update: You can easily find some strange and useless status updates on FB, all the time. What you had for breakfast, what you dreamt last night, what was the score of your local team that no one has heard of, what color of shoes you are wearing….The status update is often over-done and meaningless. And, if you breakup with your gf/bf, you can announce ‘I am single again’ within seconds; many repeat this almost every week!
7. Useless groups, pages and advertisements: Like any other popular site, FB is bombarded with all kinds of promotions. Many love to advertise their favorite music bands, or their own band they just started in the garage that nobody cares about. Then, there are meaningless groups and pages on any topic you can think of. People get carried away and start to join groups and pages for no reason or rhyme.
8. ‘Chat’: And then there is the Facebook chat. You can chat about whatever you want with whoever you run into on FB. And, if the person you chat with does not know you very well, you can come across whichever way you like. You can make up stories; you can pretend to be a saint or a satan. And if you are not selective about adding only the friends you know, you could be chatting with a 50 year old dude from Singapore who disguises to be an 18 years old cheerleader from Texas.
9. Easy to lie and deceive: Nobody is watching you; nobody can see you; people can live their fantasies on FB. Anyone can make a fake profile with a fake picture and pretend to be whoever he/she wants. That is the ugly side of FB, you can never be certain about FB ‘friends’ you have never met in real life.
10. Your Employer or school may use FB against you: Many schools check on the students’ facebook accounts; your employer may do the same. Also, most of the schools and workplaces don’t want anyone to be wasting their productive time on the Facebook. What you say or what you share on FB may come back to bite you – sooner or later.
Like any good tool, it comes down to the actual user – how you use it. FB is a very useful and a very powerful social networking tool, but it can easily become a big waste of time if you get carried away with all your profile and online friendships. By end of the day, you are dealing with a virtual society – things are not always what they look like, especially if you have 100s of friends, or should be say 100s of ‘strangers as friends’.
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